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Most Fortean Song

suburban wolf

Wolf in a Human Suit
Joined
Dec 4, 2006
Messages
127
Having a bit of random bounce around on the interwebs, I found this the track Camouflage by Stan Ridgway (possibly a forgotten classic as it got to #4 here in the UK) and, given it's urban legend style narrative, it got me to think about what a top ten of fortean inspired tracks would be like.

Discounting the obvious Ray Parker Jr with Ghostbusters but including Ghost Riders (in the Sky) - Outlaws version :), what other tracks can we add-in fortean pop pickers?
 
Oops - didn't notice the fortean music thread below. Errr... mods, could you do the honours please? Thanks!
 
'I Ran' by A Flock of Seagulls is a little Fortean.
It seems to be vaguely about alien abduction and the cover art shows a UFO reflected in a pair of sunglasses.
 
bigphoot1 said:

I'm sure I read a Pete Townsend interview where songs like that and Baba O'Reilly and so on were part of a aborted rock opera/concept album dealing with a society in collapse. Can't quite remember the ins and outs but it sounded a lot like a rock version of the 1970s Quatermass serial.
 
Yes, I think it was his Lifehouse project.
905 is from an abandoned project John Entwistle was working on about a future society.
 
ginjabadja said:
bigphoot1 said:
There's this rare little number from Ella Fitzgerald http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ua4t-xPLVA

Always good to hear Ella :) There's probably an entire subgenre of Flying Saucer related jazz and rock and roll from the 50s.

Ian Simmons did a talk on this for the Edinburgh Fortean Society and there are such delights as everything by Gong and Sun Ra.

More recently "What's that coming over the hill, is it a monster" with Bigfoot etc in the video. There's an Ogopogo Waltz and many, many more...
 
Pietro_Mercurios said:
I still think, for Fortean creepiness, Lindisfarne's 'Lady Eleanor', is up there with the best of them.

http://youtu.be/lLp9MyKURo4

These days, in my mind's eye, Lady Eleanor is played by Juliet Landau. ;)

Just a coincidence - one of my friends posted a link about that song an hour ago on Facebook.
 
gordonrutter said:
..snippet... More recently "What's that coming over the hill, is it a monster" with Bigfoot etc in the video. There's an Ogopogo Waltz and many, many more...

Oh, that is a catchy one. With a rather fun video to boot. 8)
 
Countless folk songs! You have ghosts, mermaids, shape shifting elementals, abducting fairies, dragons and monsters and so on.
 
Having gone surfing through the ol' record collection, how about Men In Black?

No need to take cover, it's not the g'awful Will Smith movie tie-in single but an altogether more weird take on the subject by ex-Pixie, Frank Black.

Not only asking the question "Are they Gray or is it my own Nation?" but featuring a sandwich-solo in the video (not kidding!)
 
ginjabadja said:
bigphoot1 said:

I'm sure I read a Pete Townsend interview where songs like that and Baba O'Reilly and so on were part of a aborted rock opera/concept album dealing with a society in collapse. Can't quite remember the ins and outs but it sounded a lot like a rock version of the 1970s Quatermass serial.

That was "Lifehouse".

Pete Townshend: "The essence of the story-line was a kind a futuristic scene…It’s a fantasy set at a time when rock ’n’ roll didn’t exist. The world was completely collapsing and the only experience that anybody ever had was through test tubes. In a way they lived as if they were in television programs. Everything was programmed. The enemies were people who gave us entertainment intravenously, and the heroes were savages who’d kept rock ‘n’ roll as a primitive force and had gone to live with it in the woods. The story was about these two sides coming together and having a brief battle."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifehouse_%28rock_opera%29

And no one's mentioned Kate Bush here yet? Or Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill"?
 
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